


an eternity and a half of vigils (blanker than snow)

by nightbloomingcereus



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Depression, Fix-It of Sorts, Hopeful Ending, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Scene: Soho 1967 (Good Omens), Smoking, Vignette, still sad because 1967 but with a hopeful ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23322610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightbloomingcereus/pseuds/nightbloomingcereus
Summary: Snow began to fall, and still Crowley stood there, a succession of cigarettes burning down to his fingertips, keeping vigil over the bookshop.The immediate aftermath of the 1967 holy water scene in Crowley's car.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 101





	an eternity and a half of vigils (blanker than snow)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to euny-sloane and asideofourown for beta-ing.

**1967**

Crowley didn't smoke, not really; he did so occasionally for the image, or when it was necessary to a temptation or to blend in to a crowd, but not for the thing itself. The taste and smell were overwhelming to a serpent's overly heightened senses, burning at the back of his throat and making his eyes water. 

But today it seemed like the thing to do. The tartan-patterned thermos had been warm when Aziraphale had handed it to him. It was not the stinging burn of something holy seeping through the layers of metal and plastic and miracle, which Aziraphale would never have been so careless as to allow. Rather, the thermos emanated a gentle warmth, as if Aziraphale had been cradling it between his hands for some time while waiting for Crowley to return to the car. Crowley had in turn held it between his own cold hands until all the warmth had seeped away, at which point he'd locked it away in the glove box of the Bentley, where it would be safe for the time being. After all, the Bentley, which was part of his heart, was warded more securely than even his flat, which was just a place where he slept. (He did not plan on leaving it there for long, though; it was not fair to the car.)

He would never smoke in the Bentley: even though he could miracle away the lingering smell of stale smoke and any stray bits of dropped ash, he would always know that they had been there. And so he locked the car and slouched around the corner to a narrow, brick-walled alley, from which he had a clear view of the front door and dusty windows of a particular bookshop. The sign read "closed," and he could see no motion inside. He lit cigarette after cigarette, sparking the first one with a fingertip of hellfire and each subsequent one with the dregs of the last. The slim, snakeskin-embossed gunmetal case, which was only large enough to hold five or so Morlands, did not dare run empty. He watched the ashes and embers fall in slow, twisting curls to the ground and let the acrid bite of smoke fill up his mouth and lungs. It tasted like ash and burning and greyness and despair. It tasted like _you go too fast for me, Crowley._ It tasted like the disconnect between the expression on Aziraphale's face and the words that had come out of his mouth. 

Snow began to fall, and still Crowley stood there, a succession of cigarettes burning down to his fingertips, keeping vigil over the bookshop. The light in the window burned a steady, low, dim amber. The neon sign in the window of the sex shop next door blinked a lurid, florid red; it clamored for attention but could not hold his, not tonight. Thrumming bass leaked out of the doorways to underground clubs and music venues further down the street. Once in a while, one of the doors would open and people – rowdy groups, infatuated couples, lonely individuals – would trickle out, stumbling a little or a lot on drunken legs and swearing at the sudden cold. 

Ordinarily, Crowley did not concern himself overmuch with the weather. He believed that whatever fashionable ensemble he happened to wear on any given day was appropriate for the temperature, and so it was. Snow and rain usually bounced off his hair and clothing as if magnetically repelled, unless Aziraphale happened to be nearby with his large, sheltering tartan umbrella. Tonight, however, he let the flakes of snow settle into his hair and melt there, let his locks go limp and bedraggled, let a trickle of snowmelt drip down the right lens of his sunglasses. Eventually, he noticed that he was shivering in his thin turtleneck. Instead of going to retrieve the jacket he'd left in the Bentley, he welcomed the chill and discomfort. The chattering of his human teeth, the tremble of his nerveless fingers, the miasma of smoke in his lungs: these things overwhelmed, in a purely physical way, and he allowed them to. He smoked, steadily, and felt his fingers grow more and more numb, and watched the dim light in the bookshop window. A thousand Hail Marys, a thousand cigarettes, until your fingers grow nerveless and the holiness burns in your lungs. Penance for the pious and for the wicked.

Aziraphale had told him that he went too fast. He’d stand here, then, and wait, an unmoving thing in a whirling world, for as long as it took. Lifetimes, eternities. Until the end of the world, if that was what it came down to. 

Slowly, the street emptied out. The neon sign went off around midnight, and the music stopped an hour or two after that. A group of young skinheads, drunk and belligerent, swaggered into Crowley's alley, only to be met by a menacing yellow glare and a sudden feeling of dread and impending doom which had them all stumbling over each other in their haste to escape from the cold, dark night and go home to their mothers. Ordinarily Crowley would have been darkly amused at this, and perhaps thrown in a bit more mischief just for good measure, but on this particular night he merely sighed tiredly and returned his attention to the door across the way. The air of gloom and despair, which had been present before the skinheads' appearance, remained unchanged.

It felt like he had been standing there for an eternity, longer than six thousand years, longer than the indeterminate amount of time before that which he'd spent falling, falling, falling, longer than the time he'd spent as an angel before time was created. Sometime after three a.m., after the last of the drunken people had stumbled past and gone on to welcome or unwelcome beds, after Crowley had lost track of the number of cigarettes he'd lit, the door to the bookshop opened and Aziraphale stepped out onto the doorstep. Golden light radiated from the open doorway behind him. 

The angel was as disheveled as he’d ever seen him, more so than he had been in chains in the Bastille or with the barrel of a gun pointed at his head during the Blitz. His hair was ruffled and sticking up in places, as if he’d been running his hands through it in agitation. There were two deep furrows between his downcast eyes and shadows beneath them. His ascot was undone, a soft fall of silk around his neck. He had swapped his jacket from earlier for a shapeless, soft beige cardigan with too-long sleeves. Crowley thought he was the most beautiful thing that he'd ever seen.

"You may as well come in," Aziraphale said.

There were no more than ten meters between them. The distance felt like an ocean, a flood. Aziraphale looked at him across it, wide-eyed. One of his hands held the door open, and the other was extended, just slightly, in Crowley's direction. 

Crowley let the last cigarette fall to the ground, where it hissed and went out against the icy flagstones. He ground it beneath his heel and walked out of the shadowed alley. His shoes slipped a little on the snow-slick pavement, but he did not fall, he did not drown. He crossed the street and stepped into the pool of warm light that spilled from the open door of the bookshop. It had never gone out, not once, during his long vigil.

Aziraphale smiled, a small, tired, hopeful thing, and followed him into the bookshop, closing the door gently behind them.

**Author's Note:**

> The title and much of the inspiration for this piece come from [_Love_](https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/17520700-love-by-miroslav-holub-october-5th-2015), by Miroslav Holub, which is one of my favorite poems in the world. 
> 
> Crowley smokes Morlands and keeps them in a gunmetal case, because that's what James Bond did.


End file.
